Yknow, I Give Seed A Lot Of Guff For Its Mobile Suit Designs. About How So Many Of The Gundams Look So

Y’know, I give seed a lot of guff for its mobile suit designs. About how so many of the Gundam’s look so similar, how a lot of the suits are just knock-offs of U.C. ones, how they tend to be reduced to a “bigger-stick” design philosophy. But Y’know what I really appreciate?

Hip-mounted railguns. A solid projectile weapon in an age of beam weapons, a extra gun to break up what could be a fairly plain hip design and it enables a bunch of cool poses, since it’s a hands-free weapon so they can be basically anywhere.

ghost of summer

watercolour on arches paper

I’m just gonna pull out that side note about Gusion first, since I’d honestly just assumed that the Brewers (or another pirate group) had re-armoured it. It’s stated that it was recovered from a high density debris zone - there’s a lot of old Ahab reactors floating about, and they tend to clump together in massive calamity-war era debris fields. It’s not unlikely that a Gundam frame (or a ship carrying a Gundam frame) would get caught in one and eventually be recovered. Given that both Flauros and presumably Barbatos were recovered in post-battle condition (unrecoverable Gundam frames typically had their cockpits destroyed to deny them to the enemy, Barbatos needs to be refitted with a cockpit prior to deployment, so….), it’s likely that Gusion was in the same sort of condition. My main two reasons for believing that it’s not it’s original condition are that the Rebake in both its forms has High-Sensitivity sensors mounted in its head, which I took to be a feature of the frame (like how the Kimaris has a sensor package for high-speed combat), which the Brewers just didn’t use since they operate in a very dense environment, so sniping’s less viable as an option. Secondly, the Gundam frames are noted in series as being very versatile, able to mount a wide variety of equipment and still perform well (like Barbatos and Astaroth). Given that basically every other Gundam Frame we see has a largely humanoid form and is able to perform equally well on Earth and space, I find it more likely that the Brewers, a space piracy Organization, accustomed to short-range raids and quick fights in the debris field, would customise the Gusion for their own purposes, rather than Calamity-War Era Gjallarhorn hobbling themselves with such a specialised setup.

In regards to the Seven Stars, apparently the Issue Family is at its head, being (presumably) the family with the highest number of Mobile Armour kills during the Calamity War. This actually makes a whole lot of sense. Carta is the only known and active member of the family, due to her father having died when she was young/being otherwise incapacitated (I’m not sure which). Her being particularly sheltered, even for Gjallarhorn nobility tracks, since Iznario (her guardian) would want to have her pliable so he can sneak his political dealings by her. Heck, her marrying McGillis would be perfect for him, since it’d essentially subsume the Issue Family into Fareed, granting them greatly increased status. Her death, and thus of the Issue line, leaves a power vacuum in the Seven Stars, which Iok thinks McGillis is trying to fill with Hashmal. It’s possible that the rest of the families are largely equal in standing, but an imbalance would shove Fareed into the head chair. McGillis already inherited a great deal of her holdings (such as her position in the Outer Earth Regulatory Joint Fleet), and improved status would allow him to consolidate them under the banner of the Fareed Family. Though you’re absolutely correct that we just don’t know enough about Gjallarhorn’s internal workings (and status of any surviving Gundam frames) to make any certain statements about any further rankings. Though I do wonder where Ville Klassen, member of Gjallarhorn nobility would fit in. Since it’s possible that the Seere was intended to be the Klassen Family Gundam (though I confess I find that to fit far too neatly).

Astaroth being sold off is rather odd. It’s possible that the official in charge genuinely didn’t know what they were working with, somebody like Ville Klassen could have hurried to process along to get rid of it, or Daddy Ted might’ve actively sought it out and cut a deal in order to obtain it. I’d say that the fact that the equipment was stripped first at least implies that somebody in Gjallarhorn didn’t want a fully functional Gundam frame from the calamity war out there and I’d assume that they probably kept the sword from the Origin version, since it’s basically irreplaceable. It suffers purely because we know of only once that a Gundam frame is actively sold, and we only hear about it offhandedly. I suppose it is possible that other Gjallarhorn families would consider it…… I suppose disrespectful? To possess a Gundam frame associated with another family (particularly an embezzler), and again, I suppose if they’re not really thought much of by Gjallarhorn at large then there’d be little point.

Honestly, I typically read Gremory’s battle anchor damage as being from in the thick of combat/fighting something especially strong. It typically operated in a two man team along with the Oltlinde, and if I was going to put the Gremory anywhere, it’d probably be somewhere where it’s Nanolaminate Coat’s going to matter, and save something like the Dantalion catching a hit and getting wrecked. Seeing as it seems to be lightly armed for a Gundam frame, it’s possible it just broke from overuse. Vual’s just odd, since it’s specifically noted as being recovered armourless, so it almost certainly wasn’t fighting at the time.

So I realised something - two things in fact, today when thinking about Iron Blooded Orphans again.

So, Gaelio, having realised that his Schwalbe Graze isn’t enough, pulls out the Bauduin family Gundam, the Kimaris, with which to fight the Barbatos. Mcgillis (as Montag) expresses amazement that Gaelio did this, and surprise that Gundam’s are fighting one another. However, his tone is rather dry, suggesting that, while surprising, such a situation is not an unthinkable one.

So, could there have been other fights between Gundam’s post-calamity war?

The other thing is that, while we’re told that there’s 26 Gundam’s known to still exist in P.D. 323, at the start of the series (I *think* it gets pushed up to 31 by the end, since Flauros, Gusion, Vual, Asmoday and Hajiroboshi get unearthed or revealed over that timeframe, but I might have forgotten one), we don’t know for certain that all of the missing ones were destroyed during the calamity war. It’s possible some were destroyed in the intervening 300-ish years, whether by politicking (think the Warren’s and Nadira’s being shoved out along with their gundam’s) or by some other conflict (it’s of course possible that not everyone was completely willing to accept Gjallarhorn’s rule postwar, no matter what the state of things).

So it’s possible that other Gundam’s have been discovered or lost since the calamity war, and they could have intervened in numerous other conflicts in that time. Mcgillis himself notes that Gundam’s “have appeared numerous times at historical turning points and have been a great influence on the history of man”. Not “the machines that won the calamity war”. It’s of course possible that Mcgillis’ romanticism makes him a biased source, prone to flowery descriptions. But. It does seem to indicate that the Gundams have had influence beyond the Calamity War already by P.D. 323, thus implying other conflicts they’ve been involved in.

I don’t know, it’s just cool to think about (and possible fodder for sidestories set prior to tekkadan’s formation in 323).

Queen of the Moon

I’m really enjoying Turn A Gundam at the moment.

Update!:

Known:

Barbatos (4th Form) - stated to have been restored to its form from the Calamity War (though not it’s performance).

I confess I’ve been having some difficulties placing this one. The 6th Form resembles the original concept design and I kept mixing up its frame design with that of its successor, the Gundam Barbatos Lupus (which has different feet). I couldn’t shake the idea that Maruba might have re-armed or had to repair parts of it (There’s a thought, I wonder if there’s (or will ever be) a Gundam Frame that’s been repaired with parts of another Gundam frame).

Though I will add that this is only the form of the Mobile Suit. We still don’t know if it had any specialist weaponry (who knows, it may still be buried on Mars somewhere).

But I’m reasonably confident that’s Barbatos.

Huh. So I had a think about this a while ago, with an eye towards putting together a Model Display, but what Gundam Frames look like they did in the calamity war? So if you were gonna put together a display of Calamity-War Era Gundam Frames, what would it look like?

Though this list is mostly focused on Gundam Frames, since they’re the ones we know the most about about in relation to the calamity war, I would like to quickly call out the the base Hugo is explicitly stated as being a thing during the Calamity war, if you wanted some grunts to back up your gundam’s.

Also, as of writing I haven’t seen any of Urdr Hunt, and I’m working mostly of what’s stated in the model kit manuals for suits from those. So if someone offhandedly mentions the calamity war in that, I don’t know about it.

Known - suits that we explicitly know to have existed as they are now during the calamity war.

Bael - piloted by Agnika Kaieru during the calamity war, presumably the first deployed, with Mcgillis explicitly restoring it for his coup.

Flauros (Calamity War Ver.) - explicitly is as it appeared in the calamity war.

Kimaris Vidar - The only version of Kimaris stated to have existed since the calamity war. It’s possible the others did as well, but I can’t say for certain.

Asmoday/Asmodeus - explicitly called out as being the same as it was in the calamity war, and the suit that prompted this whole thought experiment.

Marchosias - explicitly as it was in the calamity war.

Possible - Suits that you could make the argument they look the same as they did in the calamity war, but not explicitly known.

Astaroth Origin - I assume so? Due to the name “origin” and presence of Nanolamiate sword? But honestly it’s only stated that the Warren family recovered it, so they could’ve done some restoration work in the interim. Hence me hedging my bets and putting it here.

Barbatos (1st form) - I’m assuming it’s appearance in the first episode is how it was excavated, I don’t think Maruba would armour it if he was just gonna use it as a generator, and Gundam frames are impressive enough I don’t think he would for a buyer either.

Dantalion - It’s design can’t have changed much since the calamity war, since it’s build around utilising such a wide variety of optional equipment. Another one I’m just uncertain enough about to put here.

Gremory - As with Dantalion, we know it’s design can’t have changed much since it’s built around the Nanolaminate Coat and Battle Anchor. Though you might choose to restore the battle anchor, I don’t think it’s strictly necessary. Another example of me hedging my bets.

No - suits that we explicitly know looked different during the calamity war

Gusion - recovered by the Brewers and armoured with what they had available, ditto when Tekkadan armoured the Gusion Rebake. All we know is that it probably had long-range weaponry (Dainsleif?).

Vual - Recovered by Rosario Leone armourless, later armoured by him and Ville Klassen.

Honestly most of the ones under Possible I’m confident enough about, I just can’t find anything that makes it explicit that they haven’t changed since the Calamity War. I reckon the Astaroth Origin (minus the Warren family markings) and Gremory’d for right in though.

Kilian Eng